


Homecoming

by beccabuchanans (vestigialwords)



Category: Triple Frontier (2019)
Genre: Early morning quickie, F/M, Mentions of war violence (See notes if you want to try and avoid it), Nightmares, Unprotected Sex, Vaginal Fingering, gratuitious space imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:34:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27141827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vestigialwords/pseuds/beccabuchanans
Summary: None of your mother's warnings could ever have prepared you for the particularly unforgiving cadence of anxiety that accompanies marriage to a man in the special forces. For the ever-present thrumming fear that pulses, sick and caustic, at your core, syncopating uneasily with the troubled drumbeat of your heart.
Relationships: William "Ironhead" Miller/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> To avoid the more graphic descriptions of violence, skip any paragraph that begins: “ _Your dreams play out in vivid color…_ ”

You knew the life you were choosing when you married a man in the army. You like to think that you went into the partnership with your eyes wide open, aware of the pitfalls and challenges ahead of you, the burden you shouldered as you stood across from him and exchanged your vows. 

When you and Will started dating, your mother cautioned you about the anxious, uncertain pace of life shared among the sisterhood of army wives. There’s the screaming loneliness that percolates through every last second of your waking life. Even surrounded by friends and family, you feel the heavy absence of him. The cord binding you stretches thin and straining, rendering you helpless in the face of the other’s struggles, even as you both valiantly present brave smiles for the webcam. There’s the despair that you spy in his eyes, and you know he reads the same in yours. 

Still, none of her warnings could ever have prepared you for the particularly unforgiving cadence of anxiety that accompanies marriage to a man in the special forces. For the ever-present thrumming fear that pulses, sick and caustic, at your core, syncopating uneasily with the troubled drumbeat of your heart. 

Your dreams play out in vivid color, the same fucking nightmare plaguing every night of his deployments, twisting and stretching the months apart into hellish eternity. The details of your visions change but the broad strokes don’t—Will torn apart by an IED, his limbs scattered across the road in the wreckage of an exploded humvee; a bullet screams through his skull, his body falling to the ground limp; a knife slashes his throat as he rounds the wrong corner at the wrong time, his hands grasping at his neck as he gasps in vain for air. 

Every morning your arms flail out to the side and slam into the empty half of the bed, clutching for a body you never find. Every visitor that darkens your doorstop drops a gaping black hole of dread into the pit of your stomach. Every knock could herald the time you open the heavy oak to find a contrite soldier bearing the news you never want to hear. News that snaps the thin thread of fate connecting you to his quiet confidence, the iron-cored kindness at the heart of him, the steady sentinel who can read you as though you’re his native tongue. 

You’ve gotten used to nights in a cold bed, to days spent wandering a home overflowing with mementos that trickled in during his absences—a whittled toy spotted at a market that reminded him of you; a handwritten recipe charmed out of their interpreter’s mother; a crisp photograph of him smiling with the rest of the boys. Your house isn’t large so it’s better than nothing, but he left you behind with twice the space you need. So you try your best to fill the chilly void with splashes of vibrant color on whitewashed walls, by nourishing a constant drone of music warbling off the scratchy record player in your living room, by instigating a raucous game of fetch down the short hallway with the excitable golden Labrador you’ve come to think of as your son. 

Poor substitutes for your husband’s steady companionship, every last one, but you make do. 

He keeps track of the time apart. He can’t help himself, and can’t help telling you even when the knowledge guts you harder than a bayonet. Four tours of duty, amounting to a total of forty-one months and twelve days away from you over the last six years. He can’t wait to start tipping the scales the other direction. 

You make plans to meet him at the airport. His flight is due to arrive in the early afternoon, but a series of weather delays and a missed connection extend your wait by longer than you cared to track.

So you wait. 

You drain a shitty excuse for coffee as you turn the final pages of the novel hastily stuffed in your bag on your way out the door. You stroll around the airport grounds to give Buckley a chance to relieve himself on the lawn. You buy a trashy magazine and read it cover-to-cover, and finally debase yourself with a half-hearted attempt at the crossword puzzle of gossip trivia like the world’s most inane reading comprehension quiz.

You’re scribbling the last letter of the name of some minor celebrity you hadn’t known about thirty minutes earlier when Buckley takes off running. The leash tugs your wrist away from the last tight box on the page, jet black ink slashing a dark streak across the cheap paper. Your head shoots up to chase the incorrigible dog, to scold him for his mischief but the reprimands fade from your lips.

Because there he is.

Will strides through the thick glass security doors, his shoulders swaying with soldier’s swagger while his brother bounces along at his heels. Together they paint the mirror image of you and the wriggling pup now bounding recklessly across baggage claim. You rise from the uncomfortable plastic chair, your knees protesting and cracking from two hours spent immobile just as Buckley rockets himself into his Uncle Benny’s arms. 

Will approaches you, slow and steady, a familiar tilt of his head and sly curl of his lips dancing across his face like colors in the night sky. His hug is the sure gravitational pull of the earth, heavy and sturdy as he wraps himself around you. His kiss aligns the stars and planets, his lips slot against yours as though he’d never been gone. 

The three of you cling to wakefulness long enough to spill through your front door and split a bottle of some rich Syrah tucked away from a winery tour shared a week before they shipped out. The thick red elixir has all of you laughing into your wine glasses, drunk on the euphoria of newfound safety and the final strokes of a difficult chapter in your lives. Benny taps out first, absently stroking Buckley’s neck as he sinks lower and lower into the couch before passing out mid-sentence. 

Your husband presses a finger to his lips and takes your hand. You follow him into the depths of the house, surrendering to the gentle, insistent tug toward your bedroom, butterflies fluttering in your belly. He crawls into bed next to you with the best of intentions, but he’s tired— _exhausted_ —from thirty-six hours in transit and eleven months under enemy fire. It’s all he could do to keep his eyes open to watch you take him in your mouth as you bring him to dizzying heights and swallow him down with a grin. By the time you return from the bathroom, he’s unconscious, a puddle of drool soaked into his pillow. 

Circumstance has taught you patience, so you press a feather kiss to his cheek and curl up beside him, content to bask in the gentle heat thrumming from his chest and enveloping your bedroom in a warm glow. 

Your dreams play out in vivid color. Blood pours from open wounds like wine from the bottle. He dies. A remorseful soldier knocks on your door. You mount a folded flag on your wall next to a shadowbox of medals. You wake up. Your arms flail behind you, grasping for a body that—

You collide with a chest of solid stone, unyielding and heavy, the dip of the bed pulling you into the sloping curve of his orbit, and you remember—

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. 

He grunts awake when your shoulder slams into his chest, unable to turn as heavy arms wrap around you. You’re still naked from your aborted attempt at intimacy last night, so there’s nothing standing between you and the scorching heat of him as he tugs you to his chest.

“G’morning,” his voice rumbles in your ear, still thick and drunk with sleep even as his body betrays him. His hand snakes down your belly as he presses his hips against your ass. 

“Mornin’,” you respond as the frantic patter of your heart slows, the nervous beats slowing to align with the steady thrum at your back. 

“I was a very selfish husband last night.” 

You hum your agreement as he mouths at sensitive skin at the base of your neck. His fingers dance down your thighs and wrap around your knee to hook your leg back and over his own, opening you up for his hand to slot comfortably between your thighs. His hand lands heavy and warm over your mound, a gentle pressure against your core. He squeezes, igniting an enticing and teasing flare against your clit, and you writhe in his embrace, grinding down against the heel of his palm as he nuzzles into your shoulder.

“How can I make it up to you?”

“I think you know.” Your voice is breathless as you arch back to meet his gaze. His eyes shine a brilliant sparkling blue as the corners of his lips curl upward.

“I might have an idea or two.” 

He swipes a finger through your folds, gathering the wetness he finds between your legs and pressing a tight circle around your clit. You jerk in his arms and a low chuckle rattles against the back of your neck. He presses back again, a slow thick finger pushing into you, sturdy arms holding you tight against his chest. He curls inside you, devastating precision to his movement, calculated and purposeful as he draws careful strokes inside your body. A high-pitched whine escapes your throat and you writhe against his hand, a wordless plea for more as he slips a second finger into you. 

“Tell me, sweetheart.” He nips at the soft skin just behind your ear as his voice rumbles a shock through your body down to your core. “Tell me how I can make it up to you.” 

“Fuck me, Will,” you whine, craning your neck back to look at him, reaching back behind you to cradle the back of his head with your hand. A tectonic shift cracks his expression open in a vibrant smile; the mantle of his delight bubbles across the surface of his face. 

“Nothing would make me happier, darling.”

It’s a small shift at your back but he tilts the world when he presses beneath the surface of you, breaking you open. A quiet groan rattles out of your chest as he pushes slowly into your heat. It’s been almost a year since you felt him inside you and the pressure of him crackles through your entire body, radiating out from your core as he finds his home inside you. He’s heavy at your back, imposing and powerful as he holds you in place until he finally bottoms out. His forehead drops into the crux where your shoulder meets your neck and his breath huffs from his mouth in a warm burst.

“Missed this so bad, babe, being inside you.” 

“Will—”

“Thought about it every goddamn night since I put in for my walking papers. It was fucking torture, I swear.” 

“ _Will_ —” 

“Yeah, okay.”

He retreats from you, drawing himself out and surging back slow and deliberate. Together, you find a gentle rhythm, settling into a comfortable orbit around one another as you furl away and crash together in a predictable, luxurious dance. If you’re ever inclined to believe in a higher power, you could find it the elliptical grace of his hips as he rocks against you, confident and true, as though every part of him was designed to fit perfectly against you. His voice rumbles and rolls, earthy and honest as he groans in your ear. 

“Feel good, honey?”

It’s almost a cruel question as he presses ever deeper into you, drawn in against the sweetest brightest parts of your insides, stars blooming bright and sparkling at the edges of your vision. So you scramble at the strong limb holding you in his clutches, your fingers wrap around the solid mass of his forearm, a lifeline, security, the last tether preventing you from rollicking off into the madness of space. 

“Use your words.” 

“You know it does,” you whine as your thoughts unravel, tearing at the bounds of your mind, frenetic energy building and accelerating wildly toward escape velocity even as his hips maintain their predictable trajectory, steady and sure as the rising sun.

“Yeah, but I like hearing you say it,” he chuckles, low and dark against your ear. “Still—you know what I’d like even more?”

Before you can respond, his hand nestles insistent between your legs again, a tight circle against the nub of nerves at the apex of your thighs and you’re gone, thrashing against the pull of his arms around you but it’s no use. You clench tight around him and shudder as your mind explodes into vivid color. There’s nothing left but a brilliant supernova of sensation as your orgasm rockets through you, bursting you into a million infinite pieces in his arms, scattering the scraps of your consciousness across eternity. 

Behind you, the deep rasp of his voice cracks a desperate whine as his arms thread heavy around your torso. He rolls you onto your stomach, crushing the aftershocks of your release as they ricochet between the unforgiving mass of his chest and the softness of the mattress. He thrusts into you, rutting slow and desperate into your body as though compelled by some invisible force. He huffs breathy moans into your ear as he shudders and shakes behind your back, rocking heavy and deep into you until the sparkling embers of your detonation consume him. 

He’s a heavy weight on top of you as he slumps, a welcome burden as you both float back down from the heavens. He rolls the pair of you onto your sides, his arms clinging tight around your middle as though letting go would cause him physical pain. The calm of his breath mingles with yours in the early morning air and he places a gentle kiss into your hair in the silence broken only by the rasp of your combined breath. A beautiful interlude, but just as surely as the last chapter ended, a new one has to begin. 

Outside in the hallway you hear the bouncing of a rubber ball toward your door, then the patter of Buckley’s paws scrambling and slipping on the hardwood floor until impact, a heavy rattle at the hinges of your bedroom door. A bright laugh rings through the air from the living room down the hall.

“Come on,” Will pats your arm and you wince as he slips out of you. “We should get up before he pisses on the carpet.”

“I’m sure Buckley will be fine for a few more minutes,” you protest, reaching for the glass of water at your bedside. 

Will barks out a laugh, “Yeah, me too. I meant Benny.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr [HERE](https://mandoplease.tumblr.com/post/628652604042379264/homecoming)


End file.
